The word “cognition” is defined as
“the act of knowing” or “knowledge.”
Cognitive skills therefore refer to those skills that make
it possible for us to know.

It should be noted
that there is nothing that any human being knows, or can do,
that he has not learned. This of course excludes natural
body functions, such as breathing, as well as the reflexes,
for example, the involuntary closing of the eye when an
object approaches it. But apart from that a human being
knows nothing, or cannot do anything, that he has not
learned. Therefore, all cognitive skills must be taught, of
which the following cognitive skills are the most
important:

Concentration

Paying
attention must be distinguished from concentration. Paying
attention is a body function, and therefore does not need to
be taught. However, paying attention as such is a function
that is quite useless for the act of learning, because it is
only a fleeting occurrence. Attention usually shifts very
quickly from one object or one thing to the next. The child
must first be taught to focus his attention on something and
to keep his attention focused on this something for some
length of time. When a person focuses his attention for any
length of time, we refer to it as concentration.

Concentration rests on two legs. First, it is an act of will
and cannot take place automatically. Second, it is also a
cognitive skill, and therefore has to be taught.

Although learning disability specialists acknowledge that
“the ability to concentrate and attend to a task for a
prolonged period of time is essential for the student to
receive necessary information and complete certain academic
activities,” it seems that the ability to concentrate
is regarded as a “fafrotsky” — a word
coined by Ivan T. Sanderson, and standing for “Things
that FAll FROm The SKY.” Concentration must be taught,
after which one’s proficiency can be constantly
improved by regular and sustained practice.

Perception

The terms
“processing” and “perception” are
often used interchangeably.

Before one can learn
anything, perception must take place, i.e. one has to become
aware of it through one of the senses. Usually one has to
hear or see it. Subsequently one has to interpret whatever
one has seen or heard. In essence then, perception means
interpretation. Of course, lack of experience may cause a
person to misinterpret what he has seen or heard. In other
words, perception represents our apprehension of a present
situation in terms of our past experiences, or, as stated by
the philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804): “We see
things not as they are but as we are.”

The following situation
will illustrate how perception correlates with previous
experience:

Suppose a person parked his car and
walks away from it while continuing to look back at it. As
he goes further and further away from his car, it will
appear to him as if his car is gradually getting smaller and
smaller. In such a situation none of us, however, would gasp
in horror and cry out, “My car is shrinking!”
Although the sensory perception is that the car is shrinking
rapidly, we do not interpret that the car is changing size.
Through past experiences we have learned that objects do not
grow or shrink as we walk toward or away from them. You have
learned that their actual size remains constant, despite the
illusion. Even when one is five blocks away from one’s
car and it seems no larger than one’s fingernail, one
would interpret it as that it is still one’s car and
that it hasn’t actually changed size. This learned
perception is known as size constancy.

Pygmies,
however, who live deep in the rain forests of tropical
Africa, are not often exposed to wide vistas and distant
horizons, and therefore do not have sufficient opportunities
to learn size constancy. One Pygmy, removed from his usual
environment, was convinced he was seeing a swarm of insects
when he was actually looking at a herd of buffalo at a great
distance. When driven toward the animals he was frightened
to see the insects “grow” into buffalo and was
sure that some form of witchcraft had been at work.

A person needs to interpret sensory phenomena, and this
can only be done on the basis of past experience of the
same, similar or related phenomena. Perceptual ability,
therefore, heavily depends upon the amount of perceptual
practice and experience that the subject has already
enjoyed. This implies that perception is a cognitive skill
that can be improved tremendously through judicious practice
and experience.

Four Cognitive Skills for Successful Learning

Posted by :EdMo

The word “cognition” is defined as “the act of knowing” or
“knowledge.” Cognitive skills therefore refer to those skills that make it possible for
us to know.

It should be noted that there is nothing that any human being knows, or can
do, that he has not learned. This of course excludes natural body functions, such as breathing, as
well as the reflexes, for example, the involuntary closing of the eye when an object approaches it.
But apart from that a human being knows nothing, or cannot do anything, that he has not learned.
Therefore, all cognitive skills must be taught, of which the following cognitive skills are the most
important:

Concentration

Paying attention must be
distinguished from concentration. Paying attention is a body function, and therefore does not need
to be taught. However, paying attention as such is a function that is quite useless for the act of
learning, because it is only a fleeting occurrence. Attention usually shifts very quickly from one
object or one thing to the next. The child must first be taught to focus his attention on something
and to keep his attention focused on this something for some length of time. When a person focuses
his attention for any length of time, we refer to it as concentration.

Concentration
rests on two legs. First, it is an act of will and cannot take place automatically. Second, it is
also a cognitive skill, and therefore has to be taught.

Although learning disability
specialists acknowledge that “the ability to concentrate and attend to a task for a prolonged
period of time is essential for the student to receive necessary information and complete certain
academic activities,” it seems that the ability to concentrate is regarded as a
“fafrotsky” — a word coined by Ivan T. Sanderson, and standing for “Things
that FAll FROm The SKY.” Concentration must be taught, after which one’s proficiency can
be constantly improved by regular and sustained practice.

Perception

The terms “processing” and
“perception” are often used interchangeably.

Before one can learn anything,
perception must take place, i.e. one has to become aware of it through one of the senses. Usually
one has to hear or see it. Subsequently one has to interpret whatever one has seen or heard. In
essence then, perception means interpretation. Of course, lack of experience may cause a person to
misinterpret what he has seen or heard. In other words, perception represents our apprehension of a
present situation in terms of our past experiences, or, as stated by the philosopher Immanuel Kant
(1724-1804): “We see things not as they are but as we are.”

The
following situation will illustrate how perception correlates with previous experience:

Suppose a person parked his car and walks away from it while continuing to look back at it. As he
goes further and further away from his car, it will appear to him as if his car is gradually getting
smaller and smaller. In such a situation none of us, however, would gasp in horror and cry out,
“My car is shrinking!” Although the sensory perception is that the car is shrinking
rapidly, we do not interpret that the car is changing size. Through past experiences we have learned
that objects do not grow or shrink as we walk toward or away from them. You have learned that their
actual size remains constant, despite the illusion. Even when one is five blocks away from
one’s car and it seems no larger than one’s fingernail, one would interpret it as that
it is still one’s car and that it hasn’t actually changed size. This learned perception
is known as size constancy.

Pygmies, however, who live deep in the rain forests of
tropical Africa, are not often exposed to wide vistas and distant horizons, and therefore do not
have sufficient opportunities to learn size constancy. One Pygmy, removed from his usual
environment, was convinced he was seeing a swarm of insects when he was actually looking at a herd
of buffalo at a great distance. When driven toward the animals he was frightened to see the insects
“grow” into buffalo and was sure that some form of witchcraft had been at work.

A person needs to interpret sensory phenomena, and this can only be done on the basis of past
experience of the same, similar or related phenomena. Perceptual ability, therefore, heavily depends
upon the amount of perceptual practice and experience that the subject has already enjoyed. This
implies that perception is a cognitive skill that can be improved tremendously through judicious
practice and experience.

Memory

A variety of
memory problems are evidenced in the learning disabled. Some major categories of memory functions
wherein these problems lie are:

Receptive memory: This refers to the ability to note the
physical features of a given stimulus to be able to recognize it at a later time. The child who has
receptive processing difficulties invariably fails to recognize visual or auditory stimuli such as
the shapes or sounds associated with the letters of the alphabet, the number system, etc.

Sequential memory: This refers to the ability to recall stimuli in their order of observation or
presentation. Many dyslexics have poor visual sequential memory. Naturally this will affect their
ability to read and spell correctly. After all, every word consists of letters in a specific
sequence. In order to read one has to perceive the letters in sequence, and also remember what word
is represented by that sequence of letters. By simply changing the sequence of the letters in name,
it can become mean or amen. Some also have poor auditory sequential memory, and therefore may be
unable to repeat longer words orally without getting the syllables in the wrong order, for example
words like preliminary and statistical.

Rote memory: This refers to the ability to learn
certain information as a habit pattern. The child who has problems in this area is unable to recall
with ease those responses which should have been automatic, such as the alphabet, the number system,
multiplication tables, spelling rules, grammatical rules, etc.

Short-term memory:
Short-term memory lasts from a few seconds to a minute; the exact amount of time may vary somewhat.
When you are trying to recall a telephone number that was heard a few seconds earlier, the name of a
person who has just been introduced, or the substance of the remarks just made by a teacher in
class, you are calling on short-term memory. You need this kind of memory to retain ideas and
thoughts when writing a letter, since you must be able to keep the last sentence in mind as you
compose the next. You also need this kind of memory when you work on problems. Suppose a problem
required that we first add two numbers together (step 1: add 15 + 27) and next divide the sum (step
2: divide sum by 2). If we did this problem in our heads, we would need to retain the result of step
1 (42) momentarily, while we apply the next step (divide by 2). Some space in our short-term memory
is necessary to retain the results of step 1.

Long-term memory: This refers to the
ability to retrieve information of things learned in the past.

Until the learning
disabled develop adequate skills in recalling information, they will continue to face each learning
situation as though it is a new one. No real progress can be attained by either the child or the
teacher when the same ground has to be covered over and over because the child has forgotten. It
would appear that the most critical need that the learning disabled have is to be helped to develop
an effective processing system for remembering, because without it their performance will always
remain at a level much below what their capabilities indicate.

Strangely, though, while
memory is universally considered a prerequisite skill to successful learning, attempts to delineate
its process in the learning disabled are few, and fewer still are methods to systematically improve
it.

Logical Thinking

In his book Brain Building Dr.
Karl Albrecht states that logical thinking is not a magical process or a matter of genetic
endowment, but a learned mental process. It is the process in which one uses reasoning consistently
to come to a conclusion. Problems or situations that involve logical thinking call for structure,
for relationships between facts, and for chains of reasoning that “make sense”.

The basis of all logical thinking is sequential thought, says Dr. Albrecht. This process involves
taking the important ideas, facts, and conclusions involved in a problem and arranging them in a
chain-like progression that takes on a meaning in and of itself. To think logically is to think in
steps.

Logical
thinking is also an important foundational skill of math. “Learning mathematics is a highly
sequential process,” says Dr. Albrecht. “If you don’t grasp a certain concept,
fact, or procedure, you can never hope to grasp others that come later, which depend upon it. For
example, to understand fractions you must first understand division. To understand simple equations
in algebra requires that you understand fractions. Solving ‘word problems’ depends on
knowing how to set up and manipulate equations, and so on.”

It has been proven
that specific training in logical thinking processes can make people “smarter”. Logical
thinking allows a child to reject quick and easy answers, such as “I don’t know,”
or “this is too difficult,” by empowering him to delve deeper into his thinking
processes and understand better the methods used to arrive at a solution.